Spring Statement: No spoonful of sugar - When ‘sweeteners’ mask structural harm

On the cuts set out in the Spring Statement, Dr Hannah Absalom commented:

“Rachel Reeves announcement of £2bn investment in housing, framed as a ‘sweetener’ to accompany anticipated welfare cuts and a 15% reduction in civil service administration, speaks volumes about current governmental priorities. From the perspective of someone currently completing ethnographical research into emotional experiences poverty, such measures are not benign. They exacerbate a political climate in which people living in contexts of poverty are continually asked to absorb the consequences of systemic failure, while extreme concentrations of private wealth remain unchallenged. A casual read of the Rich List by Forbes will make clear how well the superrich continue to do, while the rest of society is expected to absorb the harms of systemic failures.

“This is not simply a matter of fiscal policy – it is a question of democratic legitimacy and emotional justice. The UK’s economic inequality is now so stark that the 50 richest families hold as much wealth as half the population combined (Equality Trust, 2024). This structural imbalance is not only unsustainable, but emotionally corrosive. It entrenches shame, hopelessness and horizontal blame among those already struggling, and fosters social conditions in which resentment and alienation thrive.

“A shift in spending priorities away from the welfare state and toward defence signals a deeper ideological movement – one that echoes broader geopolitical trends towards securitisation and in some cases authoritarianism. The UK cannot afford to drift, unthinking, into this territory.

“If Labour is serious about a form of governance that works for your average British citizen (who are now predicted to be £1.4k a year worse off on average by 2030), it must urgently attend to the affective dimensions of inequality and re-centre its policy platform on economic justice, underpinned with a deep emotional understanding. Without this, the social fabric risks further unravelling – and with it, public faith in the institutions meant to serve them.”